check rear lights / check brake light?

[vivanov1]

does anyone know what bulbs i need for those two warnings? or should i call the dealer and they should know by the warnings?

Thanks!

[rayxi]

If a bulb is out then just take out the old one to get a new one.If all your brake lights are working and you get that warning then it's most likely a corrosion problem in the socket. There are several threads with good fix procedures in this forum.

[MosH]

I was getting this everytime it rained, the bulbs were fine and I didnt see much corrosion so Ijust put some dieelectric grease on each of the contacts for all bulbs on both sides and I havent had any more warnings since.

[rayxi]

MosH: Sounds like you have a leak in your light assembly. Even if the bulb warning goes away with your fix it's a good idea to find the source of the leak.

[jmmeagher]

Originally Posted by vivanov1

does anyone know what bulbs i need for those two warnings? or should i call the dealer and they should know by the warnings?

Thanks!

I would not go to the dealership with this. They are just parts changers and will not replace just one bulb. I had a similar situation and a right rear break light out. They quoted $353 to replace the whole assembly.

I bought new aftermarket assemblies on e-bay for $70 and installed them myself in about 30 minutes. As I was doing the change out, it became apparent that the old assemblies were still working, they just needed the connections cleaned.

I also bought some bulbs to keep in my tool box. I just took the old bulbs into the local auto parts store and they hooked me up.

[Jaycee]

What an annoying little SOB problem this is! Earlier today I got the "Check Brake Lights" warning come up on the dash and I've just wasted several hours messing about with it and am no nearer a solution. All the bulbs are working perfectly and the brake lights function normally but I still have this message.

After searching the forum I removed the rear clusters to check for any electrical contact problems on the bulb holders and the units themselves. All is perfect, there's no sign of anything untoward, however I rubbed all the contact points with a little wire wool just in case. After refitting the units I switched on and pressed the pedal - "Check Brake Lights" - you freakin' SOB!



Tomorrow I'll probably hook up the laptop and NavCoder and switch the damn brake light bulb check thing off! That'll fix it!

[MosH]

Try putting dielectric bulb grease on all socket connections. Also, take the bulbs out and check the actual metal contact, one of mine was arched and melted into the plastic a bit which caused an intermitent problem. Once I greased everything and replaced the one buld which had the contact issue my alerts went away for good.

[dpgx5]

I had a similar issue, I removed the bulb socket. got some sandpaper and lifted the tabs a bit and sanded both top and bottom. put it back and bingo these things were sooo bright. That what most members here have done I took the advise and it worked. try it.

[Zulu95]

Do not use Dielectric grease. That is an insulator. Instead use conductive grease on the contacts and the problem will go away.

[Jaycee]

As I said above all contact points were perfect and I also checked resistance values and continuity of all filaments and current paths, all were good, but I did make sure with a little wire wool treatment.

However, the good news is that I've managed to locate and rectify the problem, and it's got nothing to do with electrical contacts thankfully. The last time I fired up NavCoder I made a couple of coding changes in the Light Control Module, and one change must have been to enable bulb-checking on the rear high-level brake light; nothing untoward happened at the time hence the reason I didn't pick it up straight away as being the problem, but the high-level brake light is a string of LEDs, and as we know LEDs often cause problems with bulb-check modules. This was therefore the cause of the "Check Brake Lights" warning.

My attention was initially drawn to the high-level brake light because when it was on I noticed it was very slightly pulsing, which I knew was the bulb-checker doing its thing, so I decided to get rid of that by disabling bulb-checking on it. Hey presto, after recoding the LCM to get rid of the pulsing I found that the "Check Brake Lights" warning also disappeared.